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| Thread: Improvement suggestions and small bugs on HC. | |
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted February 04, 2002 05:54 PM |
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Improvement suggestions and small bugs on HC.
A few ideas who have been collecting dust for a long time. Perhaps time to implement some of them in the scripts for HC?
1. When listing the memberlist in "Top 20 post" order and clicking Last Page.
The new page will list in "Alpha order" and not "Top 20 post" order.
2. When editing the last post in any topic where you are the Thread starter.
The warning about the topic being deleted if you check the delete box is false. (Unless the post is the only post in the topic.)
3. When editing the first post in any topic where you are the Thread starter.
In this case you should get a warning that deleting the post will delete the topic, and in this case it may be good to warn the person who is about to the deleting that their post count will be penalized if they delete their own topics. (And depending on which topic you delete you may be further penalized as well.)
4. When replying to a long thread, it would be nice if you are redirected to the last page in the thread, instead of the first.
Usually after replying you will want to review your reply.
5. When previewing a thread, it would be nice if the default was to preview the last page of the thread instead of the first. (And perhaps also to remove the two step clicking that you have to do now.)
6. On all the Forum Pages, it handles any thread with exactly 20 replies incorrectly. Such a thread has two pages, but on the Forum it looks like there's only one page. Topics with 40, 60 etcetera replies have the correct number of pages on the Forums.
7. Mentioned on Wesley's Altar of Contents thread. It would be nice if the Altar and the Library always would display the "The "Library/Altar: Table of Contents" thread on the forum page, removing the need to keep these threads alive and on the first page manually. (The same would apply to the other Forums when/if they get similar indexes.)
If somebody else have found any minor bugs or have similar improvement suggestions or even comments to the ones I've mentioned here, feel free to respond.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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Wyvern
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted February 04, 2002 06:54 PM |
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Very good suggestions, Djive. I agree with 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7. But I don't understand your point number 1. What I can say about this is that when choose the "Top 20 posts" order and I click on the last page, it shows me the last page from the Alphabet order. But I don't want this! I want to see the people with zero replies. And it seems that I can't do that. This problem should be fixed. About point number 5 - again I don't understand you. If you want to see the last page, just click on it! I suppose you have noticed that in the long threads after the name of the thread in the forum there is written: (pages: 1 2 3 etc.) So you only have to click on whichever page you want. I don't believe you don't know this. I suppose you talk about something different.
Oh, and I have something to add - I don't like the change with the name of the member next to the thread in the index. I think it was much better to know who is the author of the thread in which there is a new reply. And now what - it shows who has made the last reply. But everyone can make a reply while I'm interested who the author of the thread is. If the other members don't agree, maybe there could be the two names - that of the author and that of the last replier to the thread.
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted February 04, 2002 07:28 PM |
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Quote:
What I can say about this is that when choose the "Top 20 posts" order and I click on the last page, it shows me the last page from the Alphabet order. But I don't want this! I want to see the people with zero replies.
Exactly, that was the point. I was just clarifying what was wrong, not what I wanted to see. You would actually see people with negative post count...
"About point number 5 - again I don't understand you. If you want to see the last page, just click on it! I suppose you have noticed that in the long threads after the name of the thread in the forum there is written: (pages: 1 2 3 etc.) So you only have to click on whichever page you want. I don't believe you don't know this. I suppose you talk about something different."
Number 5 is for when you're making a reply. You don't have access to the page index at that time. I guess it can be circumvented by opening multiple browsers, but usually I don't open a new browser to make a reply. (But this is proably the best way around the problem.)
Actually, I've noticed you're re-directed differently depending on if you edit a post or if you reply to post. In one of the cases you're taken to the forum page, in the other case, you're taken to the first page of the thread. It would be nice if the handling was the same. Usually, you want the page you made the edit or added the reply to. The forum page is not a bad choice either, since it's also a likely next page to go to, but usually the first page of the thread is not the page you want to load.
About your suggestion... That change has it's ups and downs... I sometimes want one and sometimes the other, so I don't have any firm opinion either way. One thing which is not good with showing latest poster is that it doesn't work on edited posts (unless the editor also happens to be the latest poster).
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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Wyvern
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted February 09, 2002 08:45 PM |
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By the way, I have a great suggestion for the threads. When a thread has 50 replies, it should have the Silver status. When it has 100 replies - Gold status. And when it has 200 replies - Platinum status.
I haven't decided yet when should the thread become Multi-Platinum. I also think of changing the status of the thread depending on what quality bonuses and penalties are received in it.
I know, there will be too many stats but I think it will look more interesting.
P.S. This suggestion is not absolutely serious but may be developed...
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted February 12, 2002 04:05 PM |
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Quote:
I haven't decided yet when should the thread become Multi-Platinum. I also think of changing the status of the thread depending on what quality bonuses and penalties are received in it.
Well, this is up to the mods. They have the statuses of Inspiring, Interesting and so on for that purpose.
Also note that penalties are usually not an issue, since most often the Mod will delete the offending post.
An idea might be to allow the readers to rate the thread quality (1-5), as is the case on Angelspit's forum.
I don't see the connection between number of posts and a better status for the thread. Is there a difference between a Word Association Game with 20 replies and 200 replies? A Tavern with 20 posts and a Tavern with 200 replies?
As long as the subject discussed is not related to anything in particular the status (silver, platinum etcetera) of a thread is overall meaningless. The post count in itself tells you what to expect, in the above cases 1 or 10 pages of associations / tavern talk.
Also notice that once threads receive a high enough amount of posts, they're closed and a new one on the 'topic' is opened.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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Wyvern
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted February 13, 2002 08:08 PM |
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Sorry, Djive, but I don't agree. You say: Why should threads with more replies receive a better status? More posts doesn't mean bigger quality. I agree. But it's the same with the music albums - if an album becomes Multi-Platinum, that doesn't mean that it's better than an album without any status. That means that it has attracted more attention. The same with the threads - these with more posts have received more attention. And even if they are meaningless, many people find them interesting since there are many posts. And now this is not so obvious - the only change is when the thread has more than 20 replies (then it burns, but this isn't so noticeable). I think that with those stats it will look more interesting, not that they will make the threads better.
Your idea about members rating the threads is interesting but I think not much people will waste their time to rate threads instead of reading them and writing what they think (that is why in the polls there are more posts than votes). Yes, the moderators define the status, but they could change it if bonuses/penalties are applied or if the conversation goes to another topic.
And, finally, in the not so near past there was another thing in the index - the thread with most views. That is also a good idea because a thread can be good for reading and a lot of people to have read it although they haven't posted. I don't know why this feature was removed and maybe it should return but not only one thread - maybe the Top 5 most viewed.
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted February 13, 2002 08:46 PM |
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"I think that with those stats it will look more interesting, not that they will make the threads better."
Sure, but you already have the exact number of replies and views on the Forum pages. All you have to look at is the column that list the stat you want.
The problem is that this is a bit relative. If you discuss nothing in particular, then a subject easily attracts a lot of answers. However, a topic which discusses a narrow subject which few would be interested in would often attract less views and replies.
"Your idea about members rating the threads is interesting but I think not much people will waste their time to rate threads instead of reading them and writing what they think (that is why in the polls there are more posts than votes)."
You're probbaly right. Only the very good and the very bad topics would receive a rating. But isn't that a fairly good indication?
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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Wyvern
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted February 15, 2002 06:03 PM |
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So you say that you don't need Top 5 viewed threads on the Index page because you can look at the thread you want and see the number of views. But that's not exactly so. How do you know that the most viewed threads are on the first pages of the forums? They may lie somewhere after page 10 and no one of the new members to suppose about their existence... And not everyone looks through all pages.
You say the same about the number of posts in a thread - you can look at them if you want. But if there are stats, it would be more noticeable - people don't always look how many posts are there in every single thread. The stats will help them see about how many posts there are in the thread without having to look for the number.
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted February 15, 2002 07:31 PM |
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Quote:
So you say that you don't need Top 5 viewed threads on the Index page because you can look at the thread you want and see the number of views.
Perhaps, you weren't clear in what you were requesting.
Is your request to add an you option to sort on "most views' and "most posts" on the Forum pages? (that could perhaps be usable...)
Top 5 on the index page is not going to tell you all that much... It will most likely be the longest Tavern threads that takes it... (Possibly with one or two exceptions...)
I can see your point and you can't really see which topics have the most replies 8except for the top 10) and views right now, but are HC members interested in selecting topics after this?
One thing about the index page... It's probably the page that is loaded the most... Therefore we should keep down the amount of information we place on it to a minimum. The scripts may end up using too much processing time otherwise.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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Lord_Woock
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
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posted February 15, 2002 07:34 PM |
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Quote:
An idea might be to allow the readers to rate the thread quality (1-5), as is the case on Angelspit's forum.
I've seen that, on one NFS forum, you can rate other members, but only if that member selected the right option when registering. And no, I don't like NFS. My bro loves it.
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Yolk and God bless.
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My buddy's doing a webcomic and would certainly appreciate it if you checked it out!
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Sir_Elric
Responsible
Famous Hero
Having a bad hair day.
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posted June 13, 2002 05:43 AM |
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There should definately be a;
"Show replies to my posts" option, like in newsgroups with OE6.
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Neverwinter Nights - "City of Melnibone"
Direct connect - ausnwn2.dyndns.org:5121
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Kynes
Adventuring Hero
altruistic egoist
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posted June 16, 2002 09:26 AM |
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I noticed no mods have replied to any of these suggestions, so I thought it'd be better brought up again. The suggestions are good.
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Sir_Elric
Responsible
Famous Hero
Having a bad hair day.
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posted June 16, 2002 12:16 PM |
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Also I noticed in the FAQ (but now it's been removed, typical) the search function and how to use it.
Where is this exactly?
also
In the memberlist if you want to look up someone in the middle of the alphabet say "M" you have to navigate through heaps of pages to get there why not have links for each letter?
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Neverwinter Nights - "City of Melnibone"
Direct connect - ausnwn2.dyndns.org:5121
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